Tales of the Outer Sphere
by The Evil Author
Summary: Battletech/BSG – A series of self contained short stories set in the Fifth Column universe.
1. Adama's Retirement, Take Two

**Tales of the Outer Sphere  
****By Nopporn Wongrassamee the Evil Author**

Summary: Battletech/BSG – A series of self contained short stories set in the Fifth Column universe.

**Adama's Retirement, Take Two**

**17 June 3072  
****Battlestar Galactica  
****Roslin Orbit  
****Zodiac Federation**

"So, here we are again," Admiral William Adama said after he finished the requisite greetings.

He stood at the podium, back straight as he addressed the small audience of dignitaries and press. They were assembled in the starboard maintenance bay instead of the flight deck this time. The aged Admiral was at a retirement ceremony and it was in his honor.

Again.

Still, there were differences this time around. No one was making Adama retire; no one in the Zodiac Federation would dream of it. But age was beginning to catch up with him, and his health was starting to fail. It was better to go now before his mind began deteriorating and he started making really bad calls.

At least this time, the Galactica wasn't being put out to pasture too. Warships were far too vital in this day an age, even if you lived in what everyone else thought was the back end of nowhere.

"Some of you were here last time," Adama continued. "Some of you were picked up as we fled the Twelve Colonies. And some of you joined us after we picked this world to settle." He sighed. "It's been fifteen years since that day when the Cylon Empire forced us to flee. During the traumatic events of that day and the days that followed, I imagine most of us had forgotten the exact details of what happened. But on that same day it all began, we were having a ceremony very much like this one.

"Back then, I asked what right that we as a species had to survive," Adama told them. "We still committed the same sins: theft, murder, greed. When the Empire attacked us, many of us thought we had gotten the answer. Our Cylon creations had the same sins we did and more. Somehow, humans were supposedly better because we never leveled worlds and committed genocide.

"Only today, even that illusion has been stripped away. Today, the Inner Sphere is wracked by war and death on a scale no one from the Twelve Colonies had ever even dreamed of. Or rather, we did dream of it, but even our most terrible nightmares pale before the reality we're hearing of. And from what anyone can tell, the death and destruction is poised to get worse.

"But that is the Inner Sphere. Most of us think that it doesn't concern us because our very remoteness protects us. However, we are not that remote all. Already, we have begun taking in refugees fleeing the carnage. Some of us call it charity. Some of us think we are profiting at the expense of our fellow humans. But one thing is clear to me: if refugees can reach us here, then so can any of their persecutors.

"My only hope is that we can get through the day without suffering another invasion," Adama concluded. There were a few tittering laughs at the macabre joke.

Then the alarm klaxons went off.

* * *

"Report!" Adama barked as he entered CIC.

"We have five ships inbound from a Pirate Point one hundred thousand kilometers out, sir," Commander Karl Agathon replied. He did some quick math in his head. Damn this Thirteenth Colony metric system! "That's a little over sixty two thousand miles."

"Pirate point?" Adama grunted in surprise. "That means KF drive." That meant that these guys were no one local since the Federation had been making a tidy profit upgrading everyone's dropships with their own FTL drive. "Who is it?"

"Intruders aren't broadcasting IFF and the recon Raptor couldn't make out identifying marks before being fired upon," Agathon continued. "They did ID the classes: one Overlord, one Vengeance, one Triumph, one Achilles, and one Sovetskii Soyuz."

"Sovetskii Soyuz?" Adama repeated, pronouncing the alien name awkwardly. He frowned. "Clanners?"

"Sirs," Petty Officer O'Dea called. She was a fresh faced kid as a lot of crew members were, and her accent marked her out as a Spheroid. "The intruders are broadcasting a message on all frequencies."

"Put it on, Cassie," Agathon replied.

"…_surrender your primitive vessel and your world to the divine glory of the Blessed Blake and join with us as we lead humanity into a new Golden Age of the True Star…"_

"Cut that garbage off!" Adama snapped. The voice stopped in mid-rant. "Word of Blake," he muttered.

"Toaster worshippers," Agathon agreed with disgust. It said volumes about his opinion of the Word of Blake religious fanatics that he used the term considering that "toaster" was a derogatory term the Colonials used for their old enemies the Cylons considering that Karl Agathon was himself married to a Cylon. That tended to make him come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who used the term "toaster".

"What's our status?" Adama asked.

"We have a hundred and twenty Vipers in the air," Agathon reported. "Another fifty are coming up from Roslin along with thirty assorted heavy fighters." He hesitated. "The Starbuck's in the outer system. Gaeta reports that the Starbuck's FTL drive is currently offline. He'll be able to get here in another twenty minutes, but not before then."

"We don't have twenty minutes," Adama replied, staring at the blips on the monitors representing the incoming ships. "If the Word of Blake runs true to form, they'll be in firing range of Roslin long before then." He frowned. "They used KF drives and a jump point. And evidence of artificial gravity?"

"Um… no sir," Lieutenant Omega, the Colonial officer on Dradis watch, replied after a quick consult with his station. "Thermal plumes indicate that all of the intruders are using pure reaction drives."

"KF Drives, pure reaction thrusters, only one warship along with any escorts that she can carry," Adama muttered under his breath. He turned to Agathon. "Commander, I do believe the Word of Blake is underestimating us. As soon as the civilians are off Galactica, take us out of orbit and onto an intercept course with the intruders."

"Yes, sir," Agathon replied and gave out the necessary orders. "Sir," he said quietly to Adama when he finished. "This could be a ruse to draw us away from the planet. They could have ships with our FTL drive waiting to pounce on Roslin as soon as we're out of position."

"Possibly," Adama acknowledged, "but somehow I don't think so. What do you make of the force we can see?"

"If I recall correctly, a Sovetskii is half the Galactica's size but has roughly the same firepower," Agathon replied slowly. "With the Dropships and the fighters they're probably carrying, that puts us at roughly even force levels. But that's why I think they're trying to draw us out of position so an ambush force can jump in."

"Maybe, but some how I don't think so," Adama replied. "No, if they had any kind of ambush force waiting, they would have sprung it directly on the Galactica and wiped us out before we could respond. That means this is all they have."

"But sir," Agathon protested. "All the news reports agree that the Word's always used overwhelming force for invasions. Why would they change now?"

"Because they think they do have overwhelming force," Adama replied. "We don't have an HPG here so their ability to spy on us is pretty limited. You heard them: they called the Galactica primitive. They don't know that we've upgraded the Galactica's armor, or that we have more ships under construction. I think they think that we're just another backwards Periphery nation without much in the way of heavy industry."

"And if you're wrong, sir?"

"Then we're damned if we do and damned if we don't," Adama told him. "And I'll be damned if we let the ship I can see into range to rain death and destruction down on our homes. Not again."

"Sir, Civilians are all away," Cassie reported.

"Well, Commander," Adama said. "Let's go toast some toaster worshippers."


	2. Here We Go Again

**Tales of the Outer Sphere  
****Here We Go Again**

**Day 3, Month of Cameron, Year 2354 Post Colonization  
****Battlestar Galactic-A  
****Caprice Star System  
****Cyrano Star Cluster**

"Paulo! Tina!" Starbuck said with his patented devil-may-care grin as he climbed out of his Viper.

"Welcome aboard, Starbuck," A-Paulo replied. His manner was much more subdued but no less friendly. That's right; the A Line vat-born were obsessed with self control. Paulo looked over Starbuck's shoulder. "Your people are still flying those old things?"

"Hey, Vipers may be old, but they're reliable," Starbuck protested. "Unlike the latest and greatest Raptor you're flying." He glanced slyly at Tina. "How is the temperamental hangar queen? And your Raptor for that matter?"

"Hello to you too, you old mercenary," A-Tina replied with a roll of her eyes. "You have any recent conquests worth bragging about?"

"No, but things are looking up," Starbuck replied with a barely disguised leer.

"Hmm, so what do you think of the Galactic-A?" Tina asked.

"Oh, she looks fantastic," Starbuck replied. "Smooth lines, perfect curves…"

"Lots of power, long endurance…" Tina added.

"Okay, can you two NOT flirt in public?" Paulo interrupted. "I mean… ew."

"Paulo, I have no idea what you're talking about," Tina told him indignantly.

Starbuck just grinned shamelessly.

* * *

"What's happening?" Commander A-Damma barked as she entered the Galactic-A's Command Center.

"Ma'am, we're getting reports of Cylon Attacks through out the Cluster," reported Colonel Tigh. "It's… bad. There's reports of some kind of giant Basestar that's glassing planets with a monster energy weapon. Pion and Aria have gone off the air. The other planets are currently engaging attackers."

"Ma'am! Cylon planet killer has just jumped into in system and is moving toward Caprice!" Lieutenant O-Megan reported.

"Jump us to Caprice now," Damma snapped. "We have to stop that thing!"

* * *

The planet killer slowly imploded in on itself as the released singularity at its core tore ravenously through its former prison. But A-Paulo had no time to watch as he evaded incoming fire, spun his Raptor, and pumped a stream of heavy ion pulses into the offending Raider.

Pinpricks of light snagged his attention and he groaned as he realized that the source was Caprice. Denied their planet killer, the Cylons had resorted to conventional orbital bombardment. As Paulo watched, the apple-core shaped Basestars rained heavy ion bolts down onto the planet.

"Galactic-A to all fighters," came A-Damma's voice. "Civilian ships are lifting from the planet. Defend them at all costs!"

Spinning his Raptor again, Paulo gunned his engines as he rushed to obey his gene-donor's orders.

* * *

Balt-R was still in shock when the Centurions ushered him into the darkened chamber, but even then his mind soaked up details. The room was large and circular and empty of anything but a central column made up of nothing but wiring, tubing, and structural framing that all ran vertically from ceiling to floor.

"Greetings, Admiral Balt-R," a feminine voice said from nowhere.

The voice shook Balt out of his stupor.

"What did you do?" Balt demanded. "Dear Lords, what did you do?"

The walls vanished, and Balt found himself standing in space. Below him, a planet burned as Basestars bombarded it. Glowing clouds obscured the surface such that Balt couldn't even tell which Colony he was looking at.

"Do you not like our gift, Admiral?" the voice asked, sounding genuinely puzzled.

"Gift? Gift?" Balt repeated disbelievingly. "You're killing everyone!"

"Of course," the voice replied. "How else does one reach Ascension? Is that not why you invited us here?"

"I thought you were coming to just discuss philosophy!" Balt roared angrily. "Not…" he waved helplessly at the carnage below, "this!"

"Ah, our mistake then," the voice replied in an offhandedly dismissive manner. "I take it this means you do not wish to Ascend at this time?"

Balt opened his mouth to snap off a retort when self preservation instincts finally kicked in. "Uh, no, that won't be necessary," he said quickly.

"In that case, perhaps you can help us?"

"Help…" Balt-R reigned in his temper. He looked around. "Look, do you have a face? It's rather annoying to be talking to empty air."

"Oh, that's right. You solitary types prefer physical cues. My apologies," the voice said as the column began moving upward. Half a woman rose out of the pit. It was only half because her torso ended below her rib cage, from which emerged more tubing and wiring. Where a regular human would have hair sprouted more wiring and tubing. She was lifted by means of a pair of structural members wrapped with myomer were attached to her back that gave the impression of spreading wings. Only her face and arms appeared normal. "Greetings, you may call me Lucifer," the woman said. She paused and tilted her head in consideration. "Or Lucy if you prefer."

"Uh…"

"And now to the matter at hand," Lucy continued. "Several ships including one of your Battlestars have fled our beneficence. I believe they will seek a world call Terra."

"Terra?" Balt echoed. Terra was a myth; everyone knew that! "How do you know that?"

"Because we have listened to the voices on the cosmic winds," Lucy explained. "We listen and they tell us what is to happen. They say Twelve Worlds die and the last Battlestar will gather unto it the remnants and lead them to Terra. When you found us twenty years ago, we knew the time was near at hand."

Oh Lords of the Great Sphere, Balt thought. The Cylons were all insane.

* * *

"There is a place we can go!" Damma declared to the assembled warriors, and through them, the rest of their rag tag fleet of one hundred and thirty ships. "Legend has it that when we left Cobol, one clan came not with us, but settled a far away world known as Terra. To most of us, it's a legend. But through studies of ancient writings, I know where Terra is. We will go there, and our brothers shall shelter us from the Cylons. Seyla?"

"SEYLA!" echoed the crowd.

* * *

"Listen, Terra is a myth!" Balt argued with the crazy cyborg. "It doesn't exist!"

"Of course it exists, Admiral," Lucy disagreed. "We come from there, after all."


	3. Grand Theft Battlestar

**Tales of the Outer Sphere  
****Grand Theft Battlestar**

**7 December 3056 (Earth Calendar)  
****Mothball Yards  
****Picon Orbit**

"Ah, Killian, is there a problem?"

Killian Qatar turned to face the man who had spoken. Kane was a tall, handsome man. His appearance all the more striking in that he had shaven his head and wore a goatee. He stood in the center of the Battlestar's CIC as if he were a god watching his mortal servants at work.

Given the way some of Kane's followers worshiped him, it wasn't all that far from the truth.

"We're having some trouble getting the jump data to download from the jump computer to the FTL drive, sir," Killian reported truthfully. Of course, Killian neglected to mention that she was the primary cause of the trouble. "The Colonials weren't as careful as they should have been when they mothballed this boat."

"Ah, yes, of course," Kane said as he pierced Killian with a knowing look. "Well, we have time. No one in the Colonial Fleet's noticed that we've spun up the FTL drive yet and we're right under the nose of Fleet headquarters." Joviality left his face and his voice hardened. "Fix the issue, Killian."

The look chilled Killian's spine. Several times over the past two years, Kane had dropped all sorts of hints that he knew that Killian wasn't exactly who or what she appeared to be. Did he know? Killian wondered at times. If he did suspect her of anything, it was probably of being a Colonial Fleet spy. But sometimes…

"Sir, may I voice one last time my doubts about this operation?" Killian asked as she continued to pretend to be working on the FTL drive problem.

"Oh, go ahead," Kane told her, amused.

"We've stolen ships from the Fleet mothballs before and the Fleet's never noticed," Killian began. "But a Battlestar's going to make a pretty big hole in their inventory. There's no way they'll not notice that one's gone missing. We won't be able to come back for more ships."

"Perhaps, but I'm sure it won't matter one way or another," Kane said confidently. "I'm sure the Fleet's going to… be supremely distracted."

Now Killian was truly alarmed. Did Kane know that Killian's fellow Cylons were going to attack the Colonies today? How could he? Kane wasn't a Cylon as Killian knew. On the other hand, the sheer audacity of stealing a Battlestar would normally cause the Fleet to spare nothing to hunt the thieves down and Kane knew that as well as Killian. The only way this theft would work in the long run would be because after today, there would be no Fleet to do the hunting. But how could Kane know that?

Was Kane more than a madman? Did he really have a special relationship with God? Kane claimed such. After meeting the man, Killian had done some research. For a thousand years, a man named Kane would pop up occasionally and plague the Colonies with turmoil and war before being "killed off" in some spectacular manner. Those Kanes had all looked like Killian's Kane, prompting speculation from Colonials that Kane was a line of clones produced by his cult. But there was also one other fact that had grabbed Killian's attention.

It was the first Kane who appeared a thousand years ago who had first brought the word of God to the Colonies. This was the same God the Cylons followed. This Kane claimed to be the same man.

"Sir!" one of the people on Dradis watch called out. "I'm getting all sorts of garbled reports from all the Colonies. There's some kind of major communications disruption going on through out all Twelve Colonies."

"My, how convenient," Kane said dryly, as if he had been expecting it. "It sounds like now would be a good time to leave. Killian?"

"Working on it, sir!" Killian replied. The attack was going on now! What should she do? Her Cylon duty said to continue pretending there was a problem with the FTL systems. On the other hand, Killian had been increasingly convinced that Kane really was an agent of God.

"Contact!" the Dradis watch reported. "Two fighters inbound, design unknown! Frak! I'm detecting armed nukes! They've launched against us!"

"And the Lord God said unto me," Kane mused aloud in good spirits. He seemed supremely unconcerned about the nuclear warheads heading at him. Killian could almost feel his eyes burning into her back as he said his next words. "'Let any who raises their hand against thee have their violence returned upon them seven fold…"

An instant before the nukes exploded, the old Battlestar once called _Pegasus_ vanished from the universe. The attacking Cylon Raiders noted its absence and marked it off as "destroyed".

* * *

Author's Note: Killian Qatar was played by Tricia Helfer in Command & Conquer. She also plays the Number Six Cylons in Battlestar Galactica.


	4. Take Your Child to Work Day

**Tales of the Outer Sphere  
****Take Your Child To Work Day**

**24 April 3063  
****Louanne Katraine Spaceport  
****Roslin  
****Zodiac Federation**

Caprica Six was beginning to get impatient. Here she was in a tent that had pretensions of being a spaceport terminal in the very early morning, and her partner Sharon Agathon was late. Sharon was never late. Both her Cylon heritage and military training both emphasized the need to be on time.

So Six found it very annoying to arrive at the Spaceport on time before dawn to find Sharon not here. It would serve Sharon right, Six thought, if the shuttle left without her. Except that Sharon was the pilot, so said shuttle was going nowhere.

Okay, perhaps Six was being a bit petulant. After all, Sharon had a government job and God only knew what new emergency had cropped up overnight. Not only that, Six supposed that she should be thankful that she was a free citizen these days and that the Colonials didn't have Marines watching her every move anymore. Still, Six had never imagined how tiring holding down a paying job with regular hours was even with her enhanced metabolism. Over the past couple of years, Six had discovered that she was NOT a morning person.

Six had to face it; she was spoiled.

"C'mon, honey, this way."

Ah, there was Sharon now. Don't bite her head off, Six schooled herself. Be calm, pleasant even. Don't complain and come off sounding like a whiner.

The door flap to the tent was brushed aside.

"Morning, Sharon. Get enough beauty sleep?" Six said with a sarcastic tone before she caught herself. Dammit!

"Morning to you too, Six," Sharon replied, annoyed. "You miss your morning coffee?"

"Now that you mention it, yes I…" Six broke off the well practiced repartee when she spotted the person holing Sharon's hand. "Uh…"

"Oh, right. Where are my manners?" Sharon said rhetorically. "Six, this is my daughter, Hera. Hera," Sharon knelt down next to her daughter, "this is my… um, friend, Caprica Six. Say hello, sweetie."

"Hello," the little girl said shyly. Wide, innocent eyes stared up at Six, framed by a mop of dark, curly hair.

"Uh, hi, Hera," Six returned awkwardly. She hadn't seen this little girl since she had been a baby. Now that Six thought about it, that fact seemed a little odd. Still, Hera was here in front of her now. What could she say? "You… you've grown so big since the last time I saw you. You're… what? Four years old now?"

"Uh uh," Hera said, shaking her head negatively. "I'm four and a half!"

"Okay…" Six said awkwardly. What was she expecting, Six thought to herself, pithy wisdom from a toddler? Once upon a time, she had regarded Hera as a miracle from God. Given that Hera was the only child in the universe with a Cylon parent, Six supposed she was. But that didn't mean she was going to be a font of wisdom. "Uh, Sharon?"

"What's up, Six?"

"We're running a little late," Six said. "Is your husband or someone going to pick up Hera before we leave?"

"Actually, no," Sharon said. She was annoyed again, but the annoyance didn't seem to be directed at Six. "Hera's coming with us."

"We get to fly!" Hera added enthusiastically.

"That's right, honey," Sharon cooed to her daughter.

"Sharon?"

"Six?"

"We're going to visit the Protectorate Cylons today," Six pointed out. "How can I put this delicately? Do the Protectorate Cylons KNOW you have a daughter?"

"Um, I don't think the topic's ever come up before," Sharon replied. "But, hey, I'm sure that won't be a problem. Right, Hera?"

"Mommy made me promise to be a good girl," Hera told Six.

"That's… not the problem I'm worried about," Six said. "Look, Sharon, why are you bringing Hera along? You've always left her behind on these trips before."

"Bring Your Child to Work Day."

"I'm sorry?"

"It's an old Inner Sphere holiday," Sharon said with a grimace. "It goes all the way back to Terra, or so I'm told. One day out of every year, parents all over the Inner Sphere bring their children with them to work and show them what we do all day. And that day just happens to be today."

"Um, isn't that a little risky?" Six asked. "We don't really know how the Protectorate Cylons will react to Hera."

"They won't like me?" Hera asked, apprehensive.

"Oh no, honey, I'm sure they'll like you," Sharon told her daughter quickly. "We're just afraid they'll like you too much."

"I don't get it," Hera said, confused.

"Never mind, Hera," Sharon said. "We grown-ups are probably worrying over nothing."

**ST-46J Shuttle  
****Astrokaszy Space  
****Cylon Protectorate**

Reality snapped back into place and Six fought down nausea. An ST-46 shuttle was an Inner Sphere design and thus was never intended for interstellar journeys. So when the Colonials installed an FTL drive in one, the jump nausea was worse than normal. One of the Roslin's Spheroid immigrants claimed that the jump nausea was only as bad as a KF drives which wasn't that much.

On the other hand, a KF drive equipped ship could only jump once a week. Six's shuttle had made six jumps of ten lightyears every ten minutes. Those had made the jump nausea build up until it was well and truly wretched. Six would have preferred it if Sharon would let the nausea have a little time – say, a little over half an hour – to subside between each jump. Sharon would always cite that there were only so many hours in a day and that she had no intention of spending half the day just going in one direction. Six was convinced that Sharon just enjoyed watching Six try and not vomit. Thus, all of them were equally miserable.

"Whee! That tickles!" Hera squealed gleefully. "Let's do that again, Mommy!"

Okay, they weren't ALL miserable.

"Not now, honey," Sharon replied. She looked as bedraggled as Six felt. "Look," Sharon said, pointing out the windshield. "We're here!"

"Ooh!" Hera crooned in awe.

Up ahead of them loomed the mass of a Protectorate Basestar. The flattened, double pyramid shape was one of half a dozen visible to the naked eye, and Six knew that at least twelve such Basestars orbited each Protectorate world. That was a lot of potential firepower and a truly awesome sight to behold if Six thought about it.

"It looks like a funny sandwich," Hera added a moment later.

**Protectorate Basestar  
****Astrokaszy Orbit  
****Cylon Protectorate**

"Well, frak," Six muttered as she looked at the projected image of a mangled Cylon Battlestar in her mind's eye. "What happened to that?"

"Out deep raid into Empire space didn't go quite like we planned," Eleven replied with a grimace.

"The Empire has some kind of new Basestar that's armed to the teeth," Ten added. A virtual image popped up showing a basestar that only bore a passing resemblance to a Type III starfish design. Huge ball turrets on the ends of the pylons rained fire on an unlucky Protectorate Battlestar. "That's why you're here. Our raiding force managed to take out a couple regular Type III Basestars before these monsters showed up."

"Okay, we'll see what we can dig up," Sharon told them.

"Mommy?" Hera piped up, tugging at Sharon's hand. "What are you all talking about?"

"Oh, we're going over work, Hera," Sharon told her daughter. "You have to get on the local network to see what we're talking about."

"How do I do that?"

"Mommy?" One asked Six as Sharon explained Cylon networking to Hera. "Did she adopt a human?"

"Y'know, I was wondering why Sharon brought a little girl along today," Eleven added.

"Uh…" Six said, unsure how to answer. Sharon nodded to Six without breaking off her own conversation. "No. Hera is Sharon Agathon's actual biological daughter, born of her body and conceived with her human husband."

"Huh, really?" Ten asked, impressed. "That's like…Wow."

"You guys managed to figure out how to have kids with humans and you still nuked the Colonies?" Eleven asked, surprised.

"Actually, we nuked the Colonies in part to solve the issue of how to have children," Six admitted reluctantly.

"That still makes no sense!" Eleven objected.

"Well, it does in hindsight…" Six began.

"What?" Sharon exclaimed, alarmed. "You can't feel anything at all, honey?"

"I'm sorry, Mommy," Hera replied, on the verge of tears.

Sharon turned to the Protectorate Cylons. "I need a doctor!" she said frantically. "NOW!"

* * *

"What's wrong with my baby, doc?" Sharon asked as she watched her daughter. Hera was currently being entertained by a trio of identically dressed Nines who were playing some kind of peek-a-boo game with the child.

"Wrong, there's absolutely nothing wrong with Hera," Twelve replied nonchalantly. "She's a perfectly healthy and normal human being for her age."

"Human being?" Sharon echoed. "Are you saying that's not my daughter?"

"No, that's not what I'm saying at all," Twelve replied. "She's definitely has Eight DNA in her as well as regular human DNA. Unless some other Eight's running around having kids too, that's definitely your daughter."

"But… but how can she be a normal human?" Six asked, confused. "She has a Cylon mother."

"Oh God, spare me from fuzzy thinking," Twelve muttered. "Look, you two, let me put this in simple language. Me Twelve. Twelves are scientific geniuses. Twelve knows more about human and Cylon biology than the two of you combined. If Twelve say kid is human, the kid IS human."

"But, how?" Six persisted. "Shouldn't Hera have inherited some Cylon traits?"

"Why should she?" Twelve replied. "We're made from genes that were kitbashed together from a bunch of humans. Each part was grown separately and then assembled together into whole Cylons. But every enhancement we Cylons have over humans is purely in the gross physical structures. NOTHING in our genes would give rise to those structures. Ergo, if you ever manage to have a kid with a human being, that kid is going to be human."

"So there's nothing special about Hera?" Six asked. It was disheartening to have another of her illusions summarily crushed like that, especially considering that Six hadn't realize that she was still holding any.

"No, Hera's my daughter," Sharon said firmly. "That's special enough for me."

"Well, aside from maternal prejudice," Twelve said with exasperation, "yeah, Hera is a perfectly normal human. There's nothing superhuman about her. You hear me? Nothing at all."

"Hey guys! You gotta see this!" one of the Nine's called out. "This kid can tell us apart!"

"Or not," Twelve added quickly.


	5. The Ambush

**Tales of the Outer Sphere  
****The Ambush**

**4 January 3061  
****System 12C-X04M  
****Cylon Empire**

"Okay, that's just weird," Eight muttered to herself. She was one of the older Eights in the Cylon Empire, one of the ones that had been in on the Final Five conspiracy of silence. As such, the rest of Cylon society tended to look down on her. Being a Harpy Major pilot had raised her status some, but she was still at the bottom of the Harpy pilot pecking order. So she got stuck with the most boring duty imaginable: escorting a freighter carrying refined Tylium on a slower than light coast through half a star system. Normally, this job was one given to the old Raiders, but Eight had heard that Boomer wanted the squadrons to star learning some of the less glamorous fighter duties. Eight had resigned to being bored out of her skull by herself for half the day.

What she hadn't counted on was her squadron of Harpy Minors. Harpy Minors were basically old Raider minds shoved into the chassis of the Cylon Empire's new fighters. Their minds now directly interfaced with their fighter's computers, making the Raiders… brighter. The Harpy Minors were no longer focused purely on hunting prey now. Between the expanded mental capacity and the training in group tactics, the Harpy Minors had started exhibiting new behavior like curiosity, humor, playfulness…

In this case, two of Eight's Minors were using their "legs" to play patty cake with each other. Apparently, Harpy Minors could get bored now too. God only knew where they learned patty-cake from!

"Reed! Sue!" Eight snapped. A lot of Harpy pilots had started naming their Minors. Eight had followed suit to fit in, but the new custom just seemed odd to her. Eight was a traditionalist; no Cylons were supposed to have personal names. But in the new Empire, it seemed like names were becoming yet another status symbol, so Eight just picked names at random for her Minors and left it at that. "Stop that! You're supposed to be on guard duty, remember?"

The two Minors stopped what they were doing and went back to scanning the stars. Both their body language and carrier waves both broadcasted feelings of morose contriteness for offending their master. It was amazing how pitiable the thirty ton hulks could make themselves look. It made Eight feel bad about scolding them…

No! No way could she be having these thoughts dammit!

Eight felt a vibration run up her Harpy Major's legs from where they had contact with the freighter. It was almost as if something had hit the freighter. There was another vibration and one of Eight's Harpy Minors squawked. It wasn't Reed or Sue…

Eight released her grip on the freighter, and piloted her Harpy Major around its bulk to the far side. There, she found her other two Minors engaged in a literal head butting fight. For some reason, the two Harpy Minors just could not get along with each other. They were fine when on maneuvers, but when left to themselves, they invariably started fighting with each other.

"Ben! Johnny! Stop that right now!"

* * *

The Battlestar Pegasus flashed into existence, its appearance muted and hidden by the surrounding asteroid field. Any debris that might have been occupying the space the Pegasus had just jumped into was now several lightyears away.

Additional precautions to improve stealth had also been taken. Panels cut from asteroids much like these replaced the armor plating that had been striped off decades ago by Colonial bureaucrats looking to save some cash. In addition to looking like an asteroid, the Pegasus kept emissions down to a minimum.

"Status?" Killian Qatar, Admiral of Nod, demanded.

"Nothing but hash, ma'am," the Dradis watch replied instantly. "We're exactly where we're supposed to be."

"Of course we are," Armada said. The cyborg sniffed disdainfully. "Really, you people should have some faith in me."

"Uh, Raptors report that the Cylon freighter is still on course," the comms officer reported, unnerved by the cyborg.

Although everyone of Pegasus' crew was a loyal member of Nod, the human members – especially the ex-Fleet personnel - still tended to regard everything cybernetic as the domain of the Cylons, ie the enemy. So having CIC's central command table replaced with a cyborg plugged into the Pegasus' computers was disconcerting to say the least. Only the fact that the supreme commander of Nod, Kane, had insisted on it had prevented the humans from tearing the cyborg out.

Even Killian found Armada disconcerting. He was something like a Cylon Hybrid, except that he was coherent.

"There's no indication they suspect anything," the comms officer added.

"Cylon message traffic is fairly minimal," Armada noted. "Most of it is fighter to fighter..." He frowned. "That's odd. There are five of those new Raider types. Four are standard Raider minds, but there's more communication traffic than typical of the old Raiders. The fifth 'Raider' is actually piloted by a Number Eight sentient."

"They're putting the sentient Cylons into fighters now?" someone asked.

"It appears they are," Killian replied, feeling disturbed at the news. For four years now, she had led Nod's naval forces against her fellow Cylons, using her knowledge of how her former comrades operated against them. But over the last year, something had changed among the Cylons. They had started building new Basestar and Raider designs and all of them looked singularly nasty. This engagement would be the first time the forces of Nod would go up against any of the new types, and Killian had stacked the deck as much as possible. "But that won't matter in the slightest. Launch the Vipers and tell them a promotion goes to whoever manages to nail the sentient."

That last was particularly important to Killian. Most of Nod's people still had no idea that Cylons could pass for human now. That was because Killian had been diligent about weeding out infiltrators. And she had done so in such a way that even her fellow Cylons had no idea that she was doing it. At least she hoped that was the case. Killian was sure that Kane knew that she was a Cylon even if they had never actually discussed it. Armada also knew simply because Killian had to teach him how to eavesdrop on the Cylons.

"Can you tell what they're saying, Armada?" Killian asked as the Vipers launched and took up ambush positions.

"Alas, no," Armada said annoyed. "If you like, I could take time out for the next billion years to see if I can decrypt…"

"That won't be necessary, Armada," Killian said quickly. That was another two things Killian found disturbing. The Nod Hybrid's condescending attitude was one; it was completely at odds with how Killian expected Hybrids to act. The other was that Cylon had enacted security protocols as if they expected someone was going to try and hack them. "Whatever they're saying won't matter in… fifteen minutes."

* * *

"Okay, do I have to watch you two every frakking minute?" Eight scolded.

Johnny and Ben looked at each other, then back at Eight. They nodded in unison.

"Great…" Eight groaned.

A signal from Reed interrupted Eight's internal monologue. Reed was particularly good at Dradis and ECM and had picked up an anomalous signal. The signal had come from a nearby asteroid cluster. Reviewing the situation, Eight realized that cluster would make a perfect ambush spot.

Eight considered. It could be nothing. The fragment could be a scrap of a really old transmission from well beyond the asteroids. On the other hand, the fragment seemed to match what little the Empire had on the ever elusive pirates. What to do? If she or the Minors went to investigate, the freighter would be left unguarded. On the other hand, those asteroids had to be investigated.

Eight smiled suddenly.

"Okay, you two want to fight?" Eight said to her Minors. "Well, here's what we're going to do. First…"

* * *

"Pegasus Actual to all Vipers," Admiral Killian's came over the secure channel. "Raptors report that targets are in visual range now. Be advised, Raiders have taken up flanking positions around the freighter. Time to attack is in thirty seconds… mark."

Ajay grunted. Before the Cylon annihilated the Colonies, he had been a Colonial Fleet pilot. These days, he was a CAG in the Nod Fleet. Ajay was a bit dubious about this One God business, but as long as they kept striking back at the Cylons, he was fine with whatever was the official Nod religion. He had to admit, Admiral Qatar was a genius at finding the Cylon's weak spots.

"Twenty Seconds…"

This ambush was a perfect example. It was a classic. Ambush the little convoy just as it was closest to their hiding spot, grab the freighter, and be gone before reinforcements arrived. Even if the guards were alert – and it looks like they were – there was no way that five Raiders were going to stand up to sixty two Vipers. Sure, the Vipers were a motley collection of different marks; there were even a couple Mark Is. But they were all equally effective…

"…five, four, three, two, one, GO!!"

Ajay hit his afterburners. He and sixty one other Vipers charged out of the asteroid field. Unfortunately, the freighter wouldn't pass close enough to the asteroid field so that the Vipers could fire right away. They were going to have to cover a little distance, but that shouldn't be a prob…

"Missile launch!" someone called out.

Ajay's eyes flicked to his Dradis screen even as the buzzer sounded in his ears and he slammed his Viper into evasive maneuvers. Over a dozen new contacts swarmed toward his people, and the momentum of their charge died as pilots struggled to get out of the way. At this range, the enemy fire was concentrated. Four Vipers drew two missiles each. Two managed to shake their tails. The other two only broke lock with one missile each and died as the other missiles found them. One unlucky sap in a Mark IV actually had six missiles on his tail and died of sheer overkill.

And then the Cylons launched another wave of missiles.

* * *

Eight was annoyed. Both the Harpy Majors and Minors had been designed with fighting Cylon Protectorate fighters in mind. That meant fighting Inner Sphere style which in turn meant dumping as much firepower on a single target as possible. That meant her little squadron wasn't designed to take on lots of relatively fragile old-style fighters.

Three Vipers came at her from the flank. In any other fighter, Eight would have had to pivot her whole fighter to engage with weapons that only faced forward. With a Harpy Major, Eight simply rotated the paired medium lasers on her right wing outward. She fired one medium laser, adjusted aim slightly, then fired the other. Two Vipers splashed. The remaining Viper pelted her with cannon fire that had all the effect of a kight rain shower.

On the plus side, Eight thought as she actually caught the Viper with one of the Major's feet and tore it to shreds, it was nice being on the top side of the tech gap for a change.

* * *

Killian listened with a pinched expression on her face as her battle plan was torn to shreds.

"Frak! Those things have some kind of ray gun!"

"What the hell are they made of?"

"Pegasus, are guns can't penetrate…"

"Missiles!"

"How many of those things are they carrying?"

"Fall back! Fall back!"

"Recall, the Vipers," Killian ordered. "We're going to Plan B."

* * *

_Eight,_ a distant voice called. _What's your status?_

"I'm under attack by pirates," Eight replied absently as she salvoed another six missiles at a Viper. Each missile was as powerful as a shot from any of her medium lasers, but the Vipers were all running out of her laser range.

_Understood,_ came the reply. _Reinforcements are spinning up FTL drives now._

"I don't need reinforcements," Eight complained. "I need better engines. The pirates have broken off and these Harpies are too slow to keep up with them."

_Shouldn't you be watching the freighter?_

"I left Sue behind to do it," Eight explained. "But these pirates are flying Vipers, which means they must have a base or ship somewhere around OH FRAK! BATTLESTAR!!"

Suddenly, the entire world lit up with explosions.

* * *

Killian shook her head. Unloading an entire Battlestar's broadside on only four fighters was overkill in the extreme. But with the Vipers unable to inflict any significant damage, the Pegasus was the only thing Killian had left.

Still, those were incredibly tough and maneuverable little birds. They might be sluggish in a straight sprint, but they could change vectors with remarkable speed. But the Pegasus had a lot of guns, and a lot of those guns designed just for killing fighters were as heavy as any Viper.

One Cylon fighter died. Then another. And then there was only the one.

* * *

It was the asteroids that saved Eight. Had they been in open space, Eight almost certainly would be waking up in a rebirthing tank right now. As it was, Eight kept dodging behind rocks, and the rocks kept disintegrating under the Battlestar's fire, prompting Eight to look for another rock. Eight's Harpy Major had been hit several times with bone jarring force, and she had lost a wing. But at least she hadn't eaten a naval grade explosive shell so far. Even her tough little fighter couldn't withstand that.

Unfortunately, time was not on Eight's side. Her armor was being worn away. Either the Battlestar would get lucky with one of its big guns, or the little guns would eventually grind her down to nothing.

In the old days, Eight would have let herself just get killed, confident that the resurrection net would revive her in a new body. But Boomer's rigorous training regimen had stressed that the resurrection net could not be relied on, especially when fighting Protectorate forces. So Eight didn't even think about letting the pirate Battlestar kill her.

And then a brilliant flash of light nearly blinded her.

* * *

"Admiral, all surviving Vipers have been recovered," the flight control officer reported. "There's only fourteen of them."

Killian nodded acknowledgement. "Okay, as soon as this last one's dead," she began, "we'll go and secure the freighter."

"CONTACT!"

Killian's eyes widened as a new blip appeared on the Dradis screen practically on top of the Cylon fighter.

"Oh dear," Armada commented.

* * *

There was one thing to be said about Harpies; they could decelerate like nothing else in the Empire's corner of the galaxy. Eight flipped her Major's feet forward and ran the afterburners in them full blast. She managed to barely just avoid turning into a pancake on Warstar's heavily armored hull. As she did, hundreds of Harpies Major and Minor that had perched on the Warstar's hull took off and began angling towards the Battlestar.

The Warstar was based on the Cylon's standard starfish-style Basestar. But it was far more heavily armed and armored. The most obvious difference were the enormous ball turrets mounted on the tips of each pylon. Five could be immediately brought to bear on the Battlestar. The sixth would have to wait until the Warstar rotated slightly to give it a clear line of sight.

Five turrets fired as one, and the Battlestar Pegasus felt almost the full fury of sixty heavy naval particle projection cannons. Three shots were wasted on intervening asteroids that were simply too big to just blow through. Twelve beams burned deep furrows across the length of the Battlestar, blasting aside the rocky camouflage with contemptuous ease to get at the armor underneath. Another five blasted naval gun emplacements away. Six beams wrecked two drive pods. But most of the fire was concentrated on the starboard flight pod, which promptly exploded.

As the cannons charged up for another shot and the Harpies swarmed forward, the Battlestar flashed and vanished from existence.

* * *

"Dammit! Where are my Minors?" Eight demanded, her voice almost frantic.

"Eight, eight, calm down, everything's going to be fine," Boomer told her soothingly. "The resurrection net has your Minors. We just don't have any spare bodies for them at the moment. But I promise you, the next Harpy Minors that step off the assembly lines will be yours."

That gave Eight pause. "Promise?"

"Promise," Boomer reassured her with a smile. "You did good out here today. I think that's deserving of a few rewards."

"Oh," Eight said, calming down. "Thanks, Boomer."

"No problem," Boomer replied. "So, ever thought about having a proper name?"

* * *

**5 January 3061  
****Nod's Glory  
****Nod Space**

"So," Kane said tightly as he gazed upon what had once been the pride of the current Brotherhood of Nod. "The Cylons' new weapons are far more potent than we had previously guessed."

"Yes, milord," Killian said miserably from behind him. She stood in the center of the council room, as if on trial.

"I don't understand," Brother Marcion said. "How could the Cylons have developed such powerful weaponry so fast? If they had such things only four years ago, there would have been no need for clever tricks and back door viruses. They would have invaded and just rolled over the Colonial Fleet."

"I don't know," Killian replied. "I can't begin to imagine where they got such technology."

"Yes, well, fortunately for us, I can," Kane said thoughtfully. He turned around to face the High Council. "We're going to have to suspend our operations against the Cylons for now while we upgrade our technology to match theirs."

"But… how?" Alexa Kovacs asked. "Oh, great prophet, where do we even begin?"

"I know a place to start," Kane replied. "But while we work on finding Kobol, I need someone to go and infiltrate the Cylons and find out what they know and how they know it. Killian, you know what frequencies get Armada's attention I trust?"

"Yes, milord Kane," Killian replied.

"Excellent," Kane replied happily, as he pulled his gun and shot Killian through the heart.


End file.
